Their highest since the stock bubble was $15.75 in Dec 2004, and their highest on record is $37 on 04 Mar 1994. They have outlasted the competition in the consumer market by either buying them or leveraging agreements to outsell them, while still producing hardware ranging from passable to very good. I've purchased three cards with their logo: SoundBlaster AWE64, Audigy 1, and X-Fi. Hardware-wise, they've been good enough, but with the exception of the first, I've had to fight with drivers on numerous occasions. I was severely disappointed when they swallowed up Aureal, the best sound hardware I've ever used (not that there's not better; I've just not used it), because I knew it would just disappear. I bought five Aureal-based cards for myself and family, and still have one in my Linux system, and would gladly join the line to buy a new, pure Aureal card.
Incidentally, Creative expects an operating loss for the third quarter ending on Monday, but expects to post a net profit for the quarter. They're able to do this because they've sold their headquarters to another entity for $179M to be amortized on the books over five years, and will lease it back. Their financials have been all over the place over the last few years; this is going to happen to some extent, as they are a technology company, but this looks worse than most to me, though I'm not a financial analyst.
I wonder how much longer until someone buys them outright. At this point, even golden parachutes for the executives would be fine if it means that they no longer had anything to do with the company.
Even a promise of release isn't worth much from Creative. They promised to release XP drivers for the Audigy, and it took them many months to do so, delaying my (and many others') move to that OS, and when they did, it was a painful experience.
I had an original Audigy, purchased for a pre-XP operating system. When they finally did come up with drivers for XP, they required users to download an ISO from Compaq of all places, extract the files, then modify a couple of files so that it wouldn't look for the Compaq identifiers (whatever they were -- I don't recall). In these days, dial-up was still prevalent (I was on a cablemodem at the time), and the image was more than 300MB, and engendered often angry -- and mysteriously deleted -- postings on their forum.
It's one of the reasons I'm considering leaving my company. While I do generally worship at the altar of the almighty dollar, there are some sects that are a little too eager to keep the money for a chosen select few without anything more than lip-service about the sweat of the parishioners. I don't mind working for a publicly-traded company, as long as their stated commitment to their people is a commitment to all of their people.
Still, here I don't see people complaining about that flat fee just because they don't watch all channels, or because they don't watch them all the time.
Actually, there are people that complain about it. Why should my money to the cable company be supporting the Tagalog-, Vietnamese-, and Chinese-language stations when I not only don't turn to them, but actively remove them from my channel line-up? Why should I be paying for Oxygen or Lifetime if I never watch them? One of the FCC commissioners actually does want to see a la carte programming options so that consumers pay for only that which they want, not subsidizing channels that have total viewerships measured in the tens of thousands -- or less.
At sufficient partial pressures, even humans find oxygen to not be a lot of fun to breathe. When at extremely low pressures (such as in space suits), the air mix is about 65% oxygen, matching the partial pressure of oxygen at sea level. But elevated partial pressures of oxygen above one atmosphere can begin causing oxygen toxicity symptoms in a few hours or less.
As they say in medicine, it's the dose that makes the poison.
Where did we run a surplus? At the end of each fiscal year on which the Clinton administration had a direct effect, never once did the debt decrease. It's even worse when you use accounting principles to factor in the interest due on borrowing from Social Security.
If someone ever sets off a radiological bomb, the first thing I'm doing is taking out a loan to buy the land where it happens, because the value over the following decade is going to be tremendous. I'll even pay to throw in radiation detectors just to put people at ease.
There are reasons to do some scanning for nuclear material, but if a few stray particles from a medical procedure is going to be enough to stop someone, there needs to be some decisions made on the sensitivity of the scanner.
You may be able to expect a reasonable level of anonymity in public, but you have no expectations of privacy. If you want privacy, you have to go to a reasonably non-public place, such as your home or a building not under surveillance; even a bathroom works to some extent, as there are laws prohibiting most monitoring of such places.
You have the right to a jury trial in civil cases and when charged with misdemeanors or felonies. At least in California, you do not have the right to a jury trial under infractions.
I know this is about a proposed misdemeanor (three years in jail for a misdemeanor?), but I wanted to clarify that there are court cases where jury trials are not available.
Washington warned of it. The next few presidents to follow were founding fathers, and participated in the party system.
Even in those nations where political parties are nominally abolished, there are still factions that stick together, and everyone knows who they are. They are effectively parties without names.
It's never been deployed, primarily for the logistical reasons mentioned. However, it's been extremely effective in tests, shooting down simultaneous salvos of artillery and even mortar shells fired in exercises. Katyusha rockets are even easier to hit.
The issue is range: THEL is effective only out to a few kilometers, and ideally a target would be destroyed over the launch territory. To protect a town of any decent size, several of these would have to be deployed, possibly within heavy rifle range of Palestinian buildings, and production costs could be several million dollars each. I'd still be interested to see the effects, particularly if Israel basically could deploy enough to cover the border with the Gaza Strip and then simply stop targeting the launch sites, which would reduce the number of incursions into Palestinian territory, and start moving the PR tide back the other way.
You might want to consider a backpack for your notebook. They're usually made to fit under seats, so you won't have to check it, and they can be found in varying degrees of organization. I bought the one I use with my notebook, so everything that came with it (and a couple of things beside) fits neatly in the roughly eight pockets inside, and there's room for the extra charger and a magazine or two in the main compartment.
When I'm only gone for a very short time, especially only a single night, I will pack my clothes in a small carry-on. But again, I carry it in front of me, ready to place it and get out of the way.
Aside from the rare free bump for space, I fly coach everywhere, but I have learned efficient processes to make my experience -- and those around me -- smoother. I take on only the minimum required carry-on baggage, which is usually my notebook backpack. I stow it immediately under the seat in front of me, and then I sit down. On rare occasions, I have to carry an additional bag with me, but I'm already picking out where it's going a good five rows before I reach my own. That bag is carried in front of me so that I can quickly lift and place it, and then sit down.
Once I'm seated, I will pull off my jacket (I've learned to do so in the confines of my seat, without invading the space of the next person over), buckle up, and plug in headphones to listen to the cockpit chatter. I've also developed my own streamlined procedures for getting through security, such that it's relatively smooth for me.
A lot of people stress over flying and overdo things (especially packing and carry-ons), but with a little planning, much of that can be mitigated.
I was beginning to think I was the only one here that not only watches American Dad, but enjoys it. It is clearly Seth's brand of humor, but unlike Family Guy, it has its subtle moments, and there is some actual character development as the series goes. Aside from the humor, I like watching Haley battle her need to be practical with her desire to be a far-left feminist.
Speaking of which... why are you allowed to claim copyright on programs for which the source is unavailable, anyway?
For the same reason that you can claim copyright on a photo or a document that you haven't published. Otherwise, for example, photographers could not assert copyright on the thousands of photos that they take but which are not necessarily picked for publication at the time.
Microsoft is already doing this with Windows Server 2008. After installation, before proceeding any further, the Administrator password must be set. I installed WS2008 last week after downloading it from Technet, and was pleasantly surprised to see this at first login.
That your issue is with the civil courts makes a little more sense, as I know from fairly close experience that there are major issues that should be addressed. However, your original post appeared to paint the entire system -- civil and criminal -- with the same brush, as you didn't specify it's only one side.
I think one possible solution is to rewrite the laws to simplify them, removing loopholes and getting pointless laws off of the books. This happened a few decades ago en masse (look at how many city and state core codes date from the 1960s and 1970s). It would allow lawmakers to sort of do work without doing work, and give them something to call their legacy. It won't remove the need for attorneys -- knowledge of precedent and procedure will always be important -- but it may reduce their need somewhat as well as reducing the load on the judicial system.
You had some sort of false belief that Justice - something that is not often seen in a court room - would prevail, and you probably still do.
Do you really believe that the judicial system gets it wrong that often? It's not perfect -- there are those that are wrongfully convicted, as recent DNA evidence has shown -- but do you really believe that they have a strong record of getting it wrong?
The lawsuits filed by the RIAA and MPAA are a flailing attempt to prop up a business model that needs to change but can't because those in charge of it don't have the imagination to do so. There are issues with the mechanisms which are used to gather the information and to file the cases, not to mention the PR issues, but at their base, the lawsuits have at least some legal justification for the suits themselves. Attorneys for the groups also try (not always successfully) not to annoy the courts.
Thompson's lawsuits, however, have been demonstrated to be frivolous numerous times, and rather than either modify them to meet the court's requirements or stop filing them, he has gotten more childish as time has gone by in his filings. This is essentially the same as annoying the court on purpose (if it's not actually intended to do so), and while I have more faith in the judicial branch than in the other two to generally do what's right, the courts do still have a fairly strong ego, and treating its constituent judges like they're still in their first year of law school is asking to get smacked.
There is a difference. They may both be bloodsucking leeches, but the Thompson leech will also verbally abuse both the host and the very blood that he sucks while doing so.
That gets states involved in federal matters, which is something that should be avoided, much as the federal government should keep out of state matters unless there is no other choice. Federal courts only take up issues from state courts if there is an issue of federal constitutionality, which is as it should be. There is no direct mechanism for the states recalling Congress or the president, just as there is no mechanism for the federal government to remove a sitting governor or legislator.
Federal judges are appointed for life. A president cannot remove them after appointment; only Congress may do so through impeachment proceedings, and a rash of such proceedings would look like a raw power grab of the judiciary by the Democrats and hurt them in the next elections.
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Their highest since the stock bubble was $15.75 in Dec 2004, and their highest on record is $37 on 04 Mar 1994. They have outlasted the competition in the consumer market by either buying them or leveraging agreements to outsell them, while still producing hardware ranging from passable to very good. I've purchased three cards with their logo: SoundBlaster AWE64, Audigy 1, and X-Fi. Hardware-wise, they've been good enough, but with the exception of the first, I've had to fight with drivers on numerous occasions. I was severely disappointed when they swallowed up Aureal, the best sound hardware I've ever used (not that there's not better; I've just not used it), because I knew it would just disappear. I bought five Aureal-based cards for myself and family, and still have one in my Linux system, and would gladly join the line to buy a new, pure Aureal card.
Incidentally, Creative expects an operating loss for the third quarter ending on Monday, but expects to post a net profit for the quarter. They're able to do this because they've sold their headquarters to another entity for $179M to be amortized on the books over five years, and will lease it back. Their financials have been all over the place over the last few years; this is going to happen to some extent, as they are a technology company, but this looks worse than most to me, though I'm not a financial analyst.
I wonder how much longer until someone buys them outright. At this point, even golden parachutes for the executives would be fine if it means that they no longer had anything to do with the company.
Even a promise of release isn't worth much from Creative. They promised to release XP drivers for the Audigy, and it took them many months to do so, delaying my (and many others') move to that OS, and when they did, it was a painful experience.
I had an original Audigy, purchased for a pre-XP operating system. When they finally did come up with drivers for XP, they required users to download an ISO from Compaq of all places, extract the files, then modify a couple of files so that it wouldn't look for the Compaq identifiers (whatever they were -- I don't recall). In these days, dial-up was still prevalent (I was on a cablemodem at the time), and the image was more than 300MB, and engendered often angry -- and mysteriously deleted -- postings on their forum.
It's one of the reasons I'm considering leaving my company. While I do generally worship at the altar of the almighty dollar, there are some sects that are a little too eager to keep the money for a chosen select few without anything more than lip-service about the sweat of the parishioners. I don't mind working for a publicly-traded company, as long as their stated commitment to their people is a commitment to all of their people.
Actually, there are people that complain about it. Why should my money to the cable company be supporting the Tagalog-, Vietnamese-, and Chinese-language stations when I not only don't turn to them, but actively remove them from my channel line-up? Why should I be paying for Oxygen or Lifetime if I never watch them? One of the FCC commissioners actually does want to see a la carte programming options so that consumers pay for only that which they want, not subsidizing channels that have total viewerships measured in the tens of thousands -- or less.
At sufficient partial pressures, even humans find oxygen to not be a lot of fun to breathe. When at extremely low pressures (such as in space suits), the air mix is about 65% oxygen, matching the partial pressure of oxygen at sea level. But elevated partial pressures of oxygen above one atmosphere can begin causing oxygen toxicity symptoms in a few hours or less.
As they say in medicine, it's the dose that makes the poison.
Debt at the end of various fiscal years:
1993: 4,411,488,883,139.38
1994: 4,692,749,910,013.32
1995: 4,973,982,900,709.39
1996: 5,224,810,939,135.73
1997: 5,413,146,011,397.34
1998: 5,526,193,008,897.62
1999: 5,656,270,901,615.43
2000: 5,674,178,209,886.86
2001: 5,807,463,412,200.06
Where did we run a surplus? At the end of each fiscal year on which the Clinton administration had a direct effect, never once did the debt decrease. It's even worse when you use accounting principles to factor in the interest due on borrowing from Social Security.
If someone ever sets off a radiological bomb, the first thing I'm doing is taking out a loan to buy the land where it happens, because the value over the following decade is going to be tremendous. I'll even pay to throw in radiation detectors just to put people at ease.
There are reasons to do some scanning for nuclear material, but if a few stray particles from a medical procedure is going to be enough to stop someone, there needs to be some decisions made on the sensitivity of the scanner.
For some, it's both -- a USB enclosure plugged into a router.
You may be able to expect a reasonable level of anonymity in public, but you have no expectations of privacy. If you want privacy, you have to go to a reasonably non-public place, such as your home or a building not under surveillance; even a bathroom works to some extent, as there are laws prohibiting most monitoring of such places.
You have the right to a jury trial in civil cases and when charged with misdemeanors or felonies. At least in California, you do not have the right to a jury trial under infractions.
I know this is about a proposed misdemeanor (three years in jail for a misdemeanor?), but I wanted to clarify that there are court cases where jury trials are not available.
Washington warned of it. The next few presidents to follow were founding fathers, and participated in the party system.
Even in those nations where political parties are nominally abolished, there are still factions that stick together, and everyone knows who they are. They are effectively parties without names.
It's never been deployed, primarily for the logistical reasons mentioned. However, it's been extremely effective in tests, shooting down simultaneous salvos of artillery and even mortar shells fired in exercises. Katyusha rockets are even easier to hit.
The issue is range: THEL is effective only out to a few kilometers, and ideally a target would be destroyed over the launch territory. To protect a town of any decent size, several of these would have to be deployed, possibly within heavy rifle range of Palestinian buildings, and production costs could be several million dollars each. I'd still be interested to see the effects, particularly if Israel basically could deploy enough to cover the border with the Gaza Strip and then simply stop targeting the launch sites, which would reduce the number of incursions into Palestinian territory, and start moving the PR tide back the other way.
I routinely open manuals of 300-800 pages in the various PDF readers on P3 and P4 systems, and have no troubles with them. It's really not a big deal.
You might want to consider a backpack for your notebook. They're usually made to fit under seats, so you won't have to check it, and they can be found in varying degrees of organization. I bought the one I use with my notebook, so everything that came with it (and a couple of things beside) fits neatly in the roughly eight pockets inside, and there's room for the extra charger and a magazine or two in the main compartment.
When I'm only gone for a very short time, especially only a single night, I will pack my clothes in a small carry-on. But again, I carry it in front of me, ready to place it and get out of the way.
Aside from the rare free bump for space, I fly coach everywhere, but I have learned efficient processes to make my experience -- and those around me -- smoother. I take on only the minimum required carry-on baggage, which is usually my notebook backpack. I stow it immediately under the seat in front of me, and then I sit down. On rare occasions, I have to carry an additional bag with me, but I'm already picking out where it's going a good five rows before I reach my own. That bag is carried in front of me so that I can quickly lift and place it, and then sit down.
Once I'm seated, I will pull off my jacket (I've learned to do so in the confines of my seat, without invading the space of the next person over), buckle up, and plug in headphones to listen to the cockpit chatter. I've also developed my own streamlined procedures for getting through security, such that it's relatively smooth for me.
A lot of people stress over flying and overdo things (especially packing and carry-ons), but with a little planning, much of that can be mitigated.
I was beginning to think I was the only one here that not only watches American Dad, but enjoys it. It is clearly Seth's brand of humor, but unlike Family Guy, it has its subtle moments, and there is some actual character development as the series goes. Aside from the humor, I like watching Haley battle her need to be practical with her desire to be a far-left feminist.
I don't, but I also don't have Flash installed in Firefox at all. For those times when I simply must use Flash, I open IE, use the site, and close it.
Speaking of which... why are you allowed to claim copyright on programs for which the source is unavailable, anyway?
For the same reason that you can claim copyright on a photo or a document that you haven't published. Otherwise, for example, photographers could not assert copyright on the thousands of photos that they take but which are not necessarily picked for publication at the time.
Microsoft is already doing this with Windows Server 2008. After installation, before proceeding any further, the Administrator password must be set. I installed WS2008 last week after downloading it from Technet, and was pleasantly surprised to see this at first login.
That your issue is with the civil courts makes a little more sense, as I know from fairly close experience that there are major issues that should be addressed. However, your original post appeared to paint the entire system -- civil and criminal -- with the same brush, as you didn't specify it's only one side.
I think one possible solution is to rewrite the laws to simplify them, removing loopholes and getting pointless laws off of the books. This happened a few decades ago en masse (look at how many city and state core codes date from the 1960s and 1970s). It would allow lawmakers to sort of do work without doing work, and give them something to call their legacy. It won't remove the need for attorneys -- knowledge of precedent and procedure will always be important -- but it may reduce their need somewhat as well as reducing the load on the judicial system.
You had some sort of false belief that Justice - something that is not often seen in a court room - would prevail, and you probably still do.
Do you really believe that the judicial system gets it wrong that often? It's not perfect -- there are those that are wrongfully convicted, as recent DNA evidence has shown -- but do you really believe that they have a strong record of getting it wrong?
The lawsuits filed by the RIAA and MPAA are a flailing attempt to prop up a business model that needs to change but can't because those in charge of it don't have the imagination to do so. There are issues with the mechanisms which are used to gather the information and to file the cases, not to mention the PR issues, but at their base, the lawsuits have at least some legal justification for the suits themselves. Attorneys for the groups also try (not always successfully) not to annoy the courts.
Thompson's lawsuits, however, have been demonstrated to be frivolous numerous times, and rather than either modify them to meet the court's requirements or stop filing them, he has gotten more childish as time has gone by in his filings. This is essentially the same as annoying the court on purpose (if it's not actually intended to do so), and while I have more faith in the judicial branch than in the other two to generally do what's right, the courts do still have a fairly strong ego, and treating its constituent judges like they're still in their first year of law school is asking to get smacked.
There is a difference. They may both be bloodsucking leeches, but the Thompson leech will also verbally abuse both the host and the very blood that he sucks while doing so.
That gets states involved in federal matters, which is something that should be avoided, much as the federal government should keep out of state matters unless there is no other choice. Federal courts only take up issues from state courts if there is an issue of federal constitutionality, which is as it should be. There is no direct mechanism for the states recalling Congress or the president, just as there is no mechanism for the federal government to remove a sitting governor or legislator.
Federal judges are appointed for life. A president cannot remove them after appointment; only Congress may do so through impeachment proceedings, and a rash of such proceedings would look like a raw power grab of the judiciary by the Democrats and hurt them in the next elections.